Page 15 of A Life Imagined
“His, not mine.”
“But you reclaimed your inheritance.”
“No,” Mathias said tightly, still raw after all these years.“I succeeded in spiting an old man.”
From outside, there came the faint sound of an emergency siren.Rayan leaned back against the sofa cushions.“Well, it’s yours now,” he said into the silence that followed.“Whether he likes it or not.”
It was his.The closest Mathias had to a part of family history, a connection to a lineage that went back generations.Even if it still felt like a false claim.
Chapter Six
Too lazy to leave the hotel room, they ordered room service, and after eating, Rayan found his second wind.Mathias proved no match for his persistence.
“Your days are numbered, kid,” Mathias remarked, equal parts scornful and impressed, when they collapsed onto the bed afterward.Not for the first time, he’d made use of Rayan’s remarkable turnaround time.“Those bounce backs won’t last.”
“Yours are pretty impressive for someone closing in on middle age.”
Middle age?“Watch your fucking mouth.”
Rayan laughed softly and lifted a hand to Mathias’s cheek.“Believe me, age has nothing on you.”
He kissed him then curved against Mathias and fell asleep almost immediately.While Rayan was a restless sleeper, he also possessed the uncanny ability to black out in seconds, especially once certain other needs had been met.
Mathias, on the other hand, found himself unusually wired.He got out of bed and pulled the covers over Rayan’s shoulders then headed, naked, to the shower.When he returned to the room, he dressed and patted down his pockets for his cigarettes only to find the pack empty.He’d planned to stop at a superette on his way back to the hotel but had been sidetracked by the scene unfolding out front.
Mathias pocketed the room key and took the elevator down to the lobby.As he walked past the restaurant toward to the hotel entrance, he caught sight of Elise sitting alone at the bar.He slowed to a stop, silently cursing himself, then turned back and strode into the restaurant.
“Scotch, neat.Make it a double,” Mathias instructed the bartender as he pulled up a seat beside Elise.
His appraiser straightened and blinked at him, visibly tipsy.“Chief?”
“You look a sight.”
“I won’t deny that.”She knocked back the remainder of her drink.“But you’ll be happy to know I got rid of him.”
“The mouthy little shit?”
Elise’s lips quivered.“That was Theo.He does this—turns up out of the blue.He must have found out I was in Paris.We’ve been broken up two years.After I ended things, he started showing up where I was, waiting outside my apartment.”
That explained the jumpiness, the anxious silences.She certainly knows how to pick them.
“I used to get my coworkers to screen my calls at the museum because he’d phone, asking to see me,” she said with a grimace.“I don’t know how he does it.He reads all this stuff online, about location pinging or something.I’ve changed my number twice, but then it happens again.Like today.”
Mathias’s drink arrived, and beside him, Elise tapped her glass for a refill.The bartender took her empty glass and retrieved a bottle of gin from the selection lined up on the shelf behind him.
“When your contact first approached me, I only agreed to meet with him because I was desperate,” she said.
Shortly after Mathias had taken over the business, he’d reached out to an old contact in Paris who moved in museum circles to see if he knew of any qualified appraisers who might be persuaded to make the move to Calais.Everything else, he could manage, but Mathias didn’t know the difference between a Rembrandt and a Renoir.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but I accepted the offer because of Theo.I couldn’t stay in Paris anymore.”Elise thanked the bartender as he placed her drink on the coaster in front of her.“I’d already been looking elsewhere, but the chances of finding a similar position outside the city, where I could actually do what I’ve been trained to do, were practically nonexistent.”
“You’d think I asked for your undying loyalty.”Mathias took a swig of scotch, aware of the irony.He’d expected nothing less from his subordinates in the past.“I don’t care why you took the job.I just needed it filled.Ideally by someone quieter.”
Elise gave a short laugh.“You know, you’re the first person who didn’t tell me to go to the police.”
“What are the cops going to do?”
“Exactly!”she cried, triumphant.“Nothing—that’s what.I did go, by the way, and they looked at me like I was an idiot.”Elise sighed and removed her glasses to clean the lenses with the hem of her blouse.“Anyway, I’m glad I did.Take the job, that is.Despite your sunny personality, it’s been a real trip.Going out on my own, picking out pieces.At the museum, I barely had any say in what I was assigned to, whereas you just hand over the money and leave the rest to me.Honestly, sometimes it seems like you don’t even care about the work.”
